500 hours!

in article , Peter Duniho at
wrote on 4/3/04 1:24 PM:

"Philip Sondericker" wrote in message
...
Hmmm, so you're saying it's a number somewhere between 11.3 and 12.5? So
why
is it that so many people are confidently able to state, "I soloed at
exactly such-and-such hours", when in fact their circumstances were likely
similar to mine?

Let's ignore for the moment the fact that comparing time-to-solo numbers is
dumb anyway, given the vast disparity in the quality of instructors, the
quality of students, and various factors out of either's control (weather,
distance of practice area, other traffic, etc.). I also don't know why it's
hard for you to figure out what the number for you is, but I'll accept that
it is.

Oh, trust me, I'm not trying to turn this into a "least hours to solo"
competition or anything. It's just that I'm often asked, "How many hours did
you have before you soloed?", and I'd like to give an accurate answer,
that's all.

In your example, at the point in time at which you were permitted to act as
the solo pilot in command of the airplane, you had already received 11.3
hours of dual prior to that flight, plus another 0.9 hours of dual that
flight. If you add the two numbers, you get 12.2 hours of dual instruction
prior to your solo.

Well, not exactly. You see, at the start of the lesson in question, I
received some dual instruction for an undetermined length of time, then I
soloed for .3 hours, then I received some more dual instruction flying back
to the home airport. Before the lesson I had 11.3 hours, and after it I had
12.5 hours. That's why I don't know exactly how many hours I had prior to
solo.

The reason that so many people are confidently able to state "I soloed at
exactly such-and-such hours" is that they have kept an accurate record of
their dual instruction hours up to that point, and they are able to add the
hours together to come up with a single cumulative figure.

If that still doesn't answer your question, please describe as precisely as
you can what part is still confusing, and I'll be happy to try to clarify
the answer.

Pete

See above.